


Persistence Pays Off (When You Least Expect It To)

by Welfycat



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-22
Updated: 2011-04-22
Packaged: 2017-10-18 11:57:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/188662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Welfycat/pseuds/Welfycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Evan Lorne, Atlantis is full of unexpected things in unexpected places.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Persistence Pays Off (When You Least Expect It To)

**Author's Note:**

> For the [Slashing Lorne](http://slashing-lorne.livejournal.com/) Fic Exchange.  
> Written for [Calcitrix](http://calcitrix.livejournal.com/) who prompted: Offworld travel of exploration of the city, first time, and shenanigans or hijinks.  
> Betaed by the fabulously wonderful [race_the_ace](http://race-the-ace.livejournal.com/).

"Coughlin, come in," Evan Lorne said into his radio, letting just the barest hint of impatience come through. He and David Parrish had been standing just outside the transporter on the east pier for nearly twenty minutes.

Their team was scheduled for city exploration, the IOA becoming more insistent that the entire city be mapped for room usage and security. And while the Atlantis databases had given them basic maps and security sensors ensured that there weren't any hibernating Wraith lurking, it didn't take into account some of the Ancient experiments they'd encountered that may not have been dangerous to the Ancients but certainly posed threats to the current human occupants. It also didn't give any indication of what most of the areas were used for. Lorne and his team had come across winding hallway upon winding hallway of living quarters; Atlantis, having approximately the same square milage of Manhattan. Needless to say it took a very long time to explore even with the help of the transporters. He'd hoped that he wasn't going to be walking through mile after mile of bedrooms and living rooms today, but wasn't really imagining that he wouldn't be. After all, they tended to take teams of scientists guarded by marines into areas they thought might be dangerous.

"Coughlin!" Evan snapped into his radio, losing the last of his semblance of a laid-back and carefree team leader. He grimaced a little as he saw David's eyebrows shoot up from where he was sitting on the floor, his pack resting next to him.

"I'm sorry, Major, but Coughlin is currently sitting on one of my infirmary beds waiting for an x-ray. Can I pass along a message?" Doctor Beckett's voice came over the radio and David climbed to his feet with a worried expression.

"X-ray? What happened?" Evan asked, reaching out to prevent the concerned botanist from colliding with him with more force than was probably intended. Over the past six months Evan had learned that David was over enthusiastic about a lot of things, not just plants, and had a tendency to tumble directly into people when he was moving without paying attention to his surroundings.

"Just a twisted ankle, poor lad. But I'm doing an x-ray just to be on the safe side," Beckett replied jovially.

Evan breathed a sigh of relief, glad it wasn't something more serious even if it meant that he was down a team member for a few days. "Thanks, Doc. Just let him know to take it easy."

"Will do. Beckett out," the doctor replied and the line went quiet.

"Well, that explains one of them," Evan said to himself, turning as he watched David wander off a little ways, peering down the hallway that led out towards the ocean. "Reed, come in."

"Yes, sir?" Reed answered almost immediately.

"Where are you? We were supposed to be heading out," Evan paused and glanced at his watch, "twenty-five minutes ago."

"I was called up on the flight roster, sir. Colonel Sheppard asked me to take a group of scientists to the mainland because their scheduled pilot came down with the flu," Reed answered, sounding a little bit uncomfortable.

Evan could empathize; being given conflicting orders by commanding officers was never a good situation, even when there were very few chain of command problems on Atlantis. After a moment, Evan figured that Sheppard had simply forgotten that Evan's team was supposed to be doing city exploration and had probably just grabbed the first jumper trained pilot who had the ATA-gene, though Reed's gene was artificial and not nearly as strong as Evan's, he'd seen in the mess hall. It sounded like something Sheppard would do, who was much less attached to the schedules and duty rotations than Evan was.

"That's fine, Reed. Have fun on the mainland," Evan said, a little envious that Reed would get to spend the day out in the sun, probably helping with a harvest or working in one of the fields. Winter had seemed like it was going to last forever, longer than he was used to in Colorado at any rate, and most of the city had taken to going over to the mainland settlement, which was closer to the equator, whenever they could get away with it. Spring was just barely starting to come to the waters surrounding Atlantis and only in the past two weeks could Evan actually run outside and not feel like his lungs were breathing in fully formed ice.

"Looks like it's just us," David said, swinging his pack up and over his shoulders.

Evan took a look around them and picked up his own pack, having to stop for a moment to adjust the shoulder straps until it rested comfortably on his back. Really, he just wanted to call the whole thing off and come back when his team was actually available. But two people could mark the word 'residence' on the maps that were on their tablet computers just as well as four people and if they didn't go now they'd just have to go in three or four days when Coughlin could walk. "Alright, let's do this thing. Stay alert and call for me the second you think something is off. Even if it turns out to just be a shadow, better safe than sorry." Evan checked the safety on his gun, mostly out of habit because there weren't a lot of problems they could encounter to which shooting would be an effective solution.

"Of course," David replied, smiling beguilingly before walking down the hallway they were supposed to explore, his long stride leaving Evan hurrying to catch up.

It wasn't that Evan minded exploring with David, especially since they weren't in a situation that was likely to turn deadly without any warning whatsoever, which is what traveling off-world often felt like. Quite the contrary, actually. It was nice to spend some time with David that wasn't being overrun by Coughlin and Reed's rowdy antics during team nights or by their commentary while the team was off-world.

The problem was that Evan had no idea what he was supposed to say to someone that he liked, especially considering David had no idea that Evan was interested and showed no indication that he returned the interest. And there was the little problem that David was his teammate. Typically, Evan would just ask the person out and the situation would resolve itself one way or the other. But with David on his team it presented a whole host of complications.

Evan's team was a thing of beauty, or at least he thought it was. They had the perfect balance between military orderliness and scientific inquisition and geekery. They were capable of taking care of themselves off-world without appearing so intimidating that none of the native populations would talk to them, and they didn't get into nearly as many scrapes and hostage situations as Sheppard's team either. So, messing up the team by asking David out, and maybe making it so that he didn't want to stay on Evan's team, was just out of the question.

"Are you coming in?" David asked, poking his head out from the doorway that he'd disappeared through.

The hallway had taken them around thirty minutes of walking to get through, and apart from the occasional comment from David as they walked, it had been blissfully quiet. Evan hadn't really realized until that moment how little quiet and alone time he had between his team and helping Sheppard take care of any military matters that arose.

"Yeah," Evan replied, tearing his thoughts away from reminding himself why he shouldn't even look at his teammate with more than objective concern and affection and joined David in the room he'd wandered into.

"This isn't a bedroom," Evan said, mentally adding 'thankfully', because that simply would have been tempting fate.

"Well, probably not residential at any rate," David said as he stepped further into the mostly darkened room.

They could hear the trickle of water somewhere, and Evan worried a little bit about whether this section had been damaged by the storm in the first year that people still talked about. Evan pressed his hand against the wall by the door, near where the light sensor would usually activate. Most of the occupied sections of Atlantis turned on their lights automatically when a gene carrier entered the room, but Sheppard was the only one who seemed to be able to make the entire city light up just by walking through it. The lights in the room flickered on, one by one until they hit the back wall. "Wow," was all he could say.

"Wow," David echoed as he took a few stumbling steps, his head tipped back as he took in everything.

What Evan had thought was storm damage was actually the trickle of water down a series of walls into flowing ponds that were integrated into the floor. The room stretched on for what looked like maybe the length of a soccer field with built in lab stations set between some of the ponds. In the distance he could see more orderly grooves in the floor filled with murkier water and plants that looked like they were dead. A quick glance was enough to confirm that David looked like he'd died and gone to botanist heaven.

"I think it's a hydroponics lab or some sort, maybe researching water filtration that they use on the tanks in Atlantis?" David asked, mostly himself as he bent down to examine the nearest pond.

Evan smiled when he noticed the man looking but not touching, something he'd repeated over and over before he'd finally got it through to him. Not before the incident with the ink spitting flowers, but before he'd gotten hurt at least. He moved his eyes from where they were lingering on David's body nearly bent double and walked to the closest computer terminal, turning it on with just a touch to the screen. "Only one way to find out," Evan replied. For some reason, that McKay still hadn't been able to explain satisfactorily, most of the lab databases weren't accessible through the Atlantis mainframe. Mostly McKay had just mumbled about academic rivalry and said that the Ancients were as petty as possible could be expected and then some.

They spent the next two hours going from workstation to workstation, David's grin growing wider with each pond they examined and looked at the data that had been collecting for centuries. By the time they reached the other side of the room, David waxing poetically about the different mosses and molds that had survived, as well as a root structure that he was fairly certain was just dormant, Evan was past ready to take a break. There was an empty space in between a small artificial stream and a larger pond, whatever grass had been growing there long dead, leaving a smooth surface of packed dirt.

"Let's eat before we head back," Evan said as he started walking toward the clearing. When he looked back he saw that David was clearly torn between the prospect of eating and the temptation of the Ancients research on their ecosystem, Evan sighed and came back far enough to grab David's wrist, ignoring how it almost felt like holding hands. "We can come back tomorrow, everything will still be here."

Reluctantly David followed, still twisting his head around to look at everything he could see. "It's just..."

"Wow, yeah, I know," Evan finished David's unfinished statement with a grin, having heard the word enough times in the past few hours to know what was coming.

"Yeah," David agreed with a grin at least as big as Evan's.

Evan put his pack on the ground, wondering how many MREs he'd left in there and if he'd packed extra Powerbars. He'd been distracted that morning, a small disturbance in one of the labs leaving him nearly running late for meeting his team, not that any of them other than David had actually showed up. He frowned when he looked inside, suddenly realizing why he'd been adjusting the shoulder straps slightly all day when it should have fit him just fine; it wasn't his pack. Digging inside he found a thin folded blanket and a fresh lunch packed with sandwiches, cookies, and fruit from the mess hall.

Looking up, he found David kneeling at the edge of the stream looking about a minute away from plunging his hands into the water. Deciding not to question the impromptu picnic, Evan settled the blanket on the ground and started unpacking. There was enough for two, even when considering the way that both he and David tended to consume food. "Come eat, it's not even MRE's."

That caught David's attention and he was now staring at Evan with the same considering look he'd been giving the stream only moments earlier. After a few seconds, David walked over to the blanket and sat down next to Evan, picking up one of the sandwiches with a look of surprise. "Bean sprout and mozzarella?"

Evan frowned, about to ask who had packed their lunch if that was their idea of a good sandwich, when David unwrapped the sandwich and took a huge bite.

"It's my favorite," David said after he'd swallowed, looking at Evan again with that curious intensity.

Evan realized he'd been staring at David and diverted his attention down to the other sandwiches, thankfully finding a turkey and swiss with nothing suspicious on it at all. "I'm glad you like it," he said honestly.

They ate mostly in silence, sharing the canteen of lemonade that Evan had found in the pack.

"You know, I think this is the best thing that we've found," David said as he looked around the room with an expression of pleasure relaxing his features. "I mean, the medical research lab last month was really good and Doctor Beckett said it would help a lot with his research. But this is just really incredible."

Evan took a moment to look around, leaning back on the palms of his hands and tipping his head back. "I think you're right. This is pretty amazing." He focused his gaze a little at the details on the ceiling and looked to the edges of the room. "I think that some of the ceiling panels might open to the outside, see how the glass-"

Evan lost his train of thought completely as David leaned over and pressed his lips to Evan's in a consuming kiss. It took a moment for Evan to respond. He redirected his brain from analyzing where they were on the pier in order for the ceiling to be open to the outside to David's mouth on his and David's hands gripping onto his shoulders. When David stopped, leaning back so that they could both breathe, Evan blinked rapidly and tried to process the chain of events. "You kissed me," he finally said.

David laughed. "Yes, I did. And now I'm going to do it again." And then David's lips were pressed against Evan's again with an urgency that left Evan flat on his back on the picnic blanket. Evan didn't mind a bit.

When David rolled off Evan, both panting and more than a little dazed, Evan had the briefest passing thought that he was glad that the other members of his team hadn't joined them. That would have been awkward.

"You're right," David said, only continuing when Evan rolled onto his side with a raised eyebrow. "I think the roof does retract somehow."

Evan chucked and let his head drop back down onto the blanket. "So, how do you feel about going to dinner with me on Friday?"

David rolled onto his side, amusement disappearing when he saw that Evan was completely serious. "You're asking me on a date?"

"Yes?" Evan asked, wondering where he had misstepped. The idea that they'd just kissed like _that_ , and that David didn't want to go out on a date; it was more than he could process at the moment. Evan moved so that he was sitting up and looking away from David.

David's hand landed on Evan's shoulder a second later and a much gentler kiss than what had happened previously pressed was briefly against his lips. "Yes, I'll have dinner with you. I just wasn't expecting to be asked on a formal date when we'd just made out on the floor of the newly discovered Parrish-Lorne EcoAquatic Laboratory."

Evan couldn't help but grin, noticing that he couldn't help that a lot when he was around David. "I'm not sure Sheppard is going to let you get away with naming it that."

David shrugged. "Finders keepers. Come on, maybe we'll be able to have dinner tonight if we go back and debrief now."

Leaning forward, Evan planted one last kiss on David, lingering for longer than he should have. "But either way, we're on for Friday, right?"

"Yes, we're on for Friday. Dinner, a movie. Or we could just skip the movie and go straight back to your rooms," David suggested as he collected the remainders of their picnic.

Evan laughed, not really sure what he could say to that. "Why my room and not yours?" he finally asked as he folded the picnic blanket.

"Yours is closer to the mess hall," David replied with a wink.

Still laughing, Evan picked up the pack that wasn't his and they started making their way back to the exit, a whole host of plans, questions, and possibilities swirling in his mind as they walked.

*****

In the end, Coughlin was the one who cracked.

Coughlin had been released from the infirmary but was resting in one of the reading rooms when Lorne tracked him down, his foot wrapped and propped up on the armrest of the couch.

Lorne sat down on the footstool next to Coughlin and stared directly at him, glad that the room was vacant in the mid-morning rush on Atlantis. "Was the picnic your idea or Reed's?" he asked using his best no-nonsense team leader voice.

Coughlin's sputter was all the answer he really needed.

"You don't think spraining your ankle was a bit much?" Evan asked, unable to keep the amusement from his voice.

"No, sir." Coughlin said with a straight face. "I actually tripped on the stairs on my way to the infirmary, with a cough and a slight fever."

Evan gave a huff of laughter. "Reed's reassignment?"

"The scheduled pilot just happened to have a problem with some of the data sensors in his lab yesterday morning. I believe they sorted themselves out shortly after the jumper took off. And Reed just happened to be in the right place at the right time when the Colonel needed a pilot," Coughlin shrugged, not managing to keep a smile from quirking at the edge of his lips.

"And the lab we found?" Evan asked, wondering how exactly they'd pulled that off.

Coughlin shrugged again, but this time with an equally puzzled expression. "I have no idea. Colonel Sheppard is the one who arranges the city exploration schedule."

Deciding that he really didn't want to know if his CO was playing matchmaker, Evan mentally filed it in the realm of happy coincidence and got to his feet. "Rest your ankle, we're scheduled for an off-world mission next week."

"Yes, sir." Coughlin grinned and turned back to the laptop that was resting on his lap.

When Evan reached the door, he turned back. "Thank you." It wasn't enough, not anywhere near enough even though he had no idea how his team had even known in the first place, but it was a start.

"Team comes first," Coughlin said simply. "And it was going to drive me and Reed crazy if we didn't do something about it."

Evan rolled his eyes and left the room, figuring that whatever good grace Coughlin and Reed had earned with their little setup would almost certainly be used by badgering him and David until the end of time. It was completely worth it.


End file.
